


Best/Worst After School Pickup

by sinesofinsanity



Category: Blue Beetle (Comics)
Genre: Aliens, Car Chase, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinesofinsanity/pseuds/sinesofinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She rolled her eyes at him, "Booster you're REALLY bad at this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best/Worst After School Pickup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Effex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Effex/gifts).



> So I have a special love for fics about unusual babysitters for Milagro
> 
> HUGE thanks to Elfwreck on yulechat for beta-ing

The school parking lot was crammed with soccer moms, dads with strollers, harried babysitters, slow moving grandparents, exhausted teachers and, naturally, a couple hundred kids alternately following or ignoring the adults. For their part, the adults were doing their best to instill some kind of order to the chaos, or at least get their charges out of there as quickly as possible. Despite the confusion, everyone noticed the flashy sports car drive into the lot and slide to a stop in front of the playground. The driver let the engine run for an extra moment before cutting it off. Exactly fifteen seconds later, timed for maximum exposure, a tall blond man climbed out and walked over to lean casually on his passenger side door. The hush that had descended on the parking lot ended as everyone began speculating who the man was. Only then did he acknowledge the other parents, winking at a pair of mothers from behind gold-tinted sunglasses, and flashing a million-dollar grin at a dad by the kindergarten fence.

It took twice as long as usual for the lot to empty that afternoon. The strange man kept up the smiles and waves, nodding to those who said hi and winking at anyone who stared a little too openly. He flirted shamelessly with the playground monitor who tried to ask who he had come to pick up and laughed when the head of the PTA suggested he was the handsomest thing she'd ever seen at elementary school. Finally, when only the last handful of students were left, a black-haired girl in a blue coat marched over.

"Honestly, Beverly, how do you get your hair to fall in ringlets like that? I wouldn't be so curious, but it frames your face perfectly to bring out the sparkle in your smile." The man was saying to the playground monitor who giggled helplessly.

"You're _really_ bad at this," declared the girl.

"Milagro Reyes, you are too pretty to be so cruel!" He winked at her, "I'll have you know I've been practicing; I need to be able to beat Skeets at something." She rolled her eyes.

"Milagro," Beverly cleared her throat, "is this your... uh... pickup?"

"Yeah, this is Michael. I guess he's--"

"Babysitting." he supplied, "Michael Carter at your service ma'am." He shook her hand for half a second before turning and holding out a hand to Milagro. "But more importantly, at yours."

She glared at him skeptically. "Jaime usually babysits me."

"Your brother's working." The grin never wavered, but his eyebrows rose meaningfully. "I was in the neighbourhood so I offered to give you a lift." He turned and opened the passenger door with a sweeping gesture. "Your chariot, my lady."

Milagro stayed on the sidewalk, watching Beverly wander back to the playground and the couple of kids left there. "What's the password?"

"What?"

"The secret password. I'm not allowed to get into anyone's car unless they know the secret password."

Michael blinked. "But you know me."

She shrugged. "So? Even without your," she waved vaguely, "job, you could be secretly creepy."

He considered that for a moment, "Good point. Let's see, password, password..." He glanced around, Beverly was talking with another parent, but glanced over at him every couple of minutes. With a shrug he leaned down and stuck his head in the car. "Skeets!"

"Sir?" chirped an electronic voice from the back seat.

"You are _so_ bad at this!" groaned Milagro.

He adopted a wounded expression and clasped a hand over his heart. "Why do the ladies never like me?"

"I think it's your cologne, sir." replied Skeets. Milagro giggled.

"Oh sure, she likes you well enough, and that was rhetorical and you knew it." Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Do you remember Mrs Reyes giving us a secret password?"

"Rainbow Dash, sir."

"Rainbow what?"

"Thanks Skeets!" Milagro hopped into the car.

Looking thoroughly confused, Michael shut the door after her and crossed to the other side, waving at Beverly and the other parent before sliding in. They both blushed and looked away hurriedly. “Ok what was that, and what am I so bad at?”

“Rainbow Dash sir, is an anthropomorphised small horse from--”

“Yeah Skeets, that part wasn’t important.” With a squeal of tires the car slid out of the parking lot into city traffic.

Milagro shook her head. “Okay, one: Rainbow Dash is awesome, don’t even start. Two: you’re bad at secrets. You know, secret identities? Like most superheroes have? And three: you’re going the wrong way.”

“I’m what?” He twisted the steering wheel slightly, veering into the other lane. A chorus of horns followed them back to their lane.

“I’m afraid young Miss Reyes is correct, sir; you should have turned left from the school.”

“Aw $#*&;Q%”

“Sir!”

“What? That won’t be a recognized swear word for at least another hundred and fifty years.”

“All the same,” protested the robot. At the next intersection Michael cut a tight U-turn and accelerated up the other side of the street, weaving through traffic.

“So why couldn’t Jaime pick me up?”

“I told you he’s working. And what do you mean I’m bad at secrets? I can keep secrets.”

“You have indeed kept many things hidden, sir," piped up Skeets. "Although it does depend on the secret.”

“Don’t listen to him.” He slammed on the brakes when a pickup truck cut them off, forcing the two human passengers to fall forward and Skeets to fly into the back of Milagro’s seat. “Sorry buddy.”

“Working doing what? Why aren’t you helping him?” she protested.

“I am helping, I’m picking up you.” He was swerving to pass the truck that had cut them off so didn’t look at her when he answered.

“I mean helping with something real. I can walk home on my own ya know. I have a cell phone now.”

“But then we wouldn’t get to have all this fun.” He veered into the other lane to pass a car, cutting in front of a minivan whose driver made a rude gesture at them.

“Is Jaime in trouble?”

“Why would you think that? Now come on, you didn’t answer my question, how am I bad at secrets?”

“You didn’t answer my question either!” she complained.

“Sure I did, don’t leave me hanging here.” They stopped suddenly at an intersection, but he still didn’t look at her.

She groaned, “Skeets? Where’s Jaime?”

“The Blue Beetle is currently trapped in a localized time loop, along with Mr. and Mrs. Reyes and Mr. Carlson,” chirped the AI in the backseat.

“WHAT?” she shrieked at the same time that Michael yelled “Skeets!”

“With respect, sir, she was going to find out anyway.” Somehow Skeets managed to sound more put out than he had while complaining about futuristic swears.

“Not if we fixed it first,” whined Michael.

“Fixed what? What’s a time loop? Why is my family trapped in it? Who’s Mr. Carlson?”

“Mr. Carlson is a postal service provider.”

It took her a moment to decipher the robot’s words, “My mailman? But what is it? Who’s trapped them?”

“Sir, shall I--”

“Nah it’s okay Skeets, I’ll take over.” Michael sighed, checked his blind-spot, then nearly collided with the car in the other lane anyway. He swerved back to their lane and muttered something about photon cloaks. “Have you ever heard of a Chronophage?”

She glared at him.

“Right, of course not. They’re aliens. Well, a class of aliens. They feed on time, sort of. Chronal or temporal energy, potential energy, time stream energy, you name it. Some of them are like cockroaches, going after time travelers and paradoxes. Most of them are pretty nice about it though; they find a way to grab energy from a host and let them live to death. Methods vary; some send you back in time to before you were born; some influence a critical decision so your life goes in a completely different direction; some just find a way to always be near you, just in the corner of your eye, and feed off the potential energy from all the people your life affects. Then there are the Masques.”

“You’re not making sense.” She crossed her arms and tried to frown harder at him.

“Bear with me, kiddo. Anyway, the Masques are like the rest, they feed on the potential energy of your life but they’re slippery. They don’t want it all at once, they want to be able to keep coming back to the same snack. So they trap their victims in a time loop, gobble a bit and head on their way, coming back whenever they’re feeling peckish. Whoever’s trapped has no idea, just relives the same half hour over and over again till the loop degrades and they instantly die of old age.” Michael still wasn’t looking at her, but his hands had tightened so hard on the steering wheel his knuckles were turning white. “They don’t normally go after humans,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

“Are they okay? Mom, Dad and Jaime, are they gonna be okay?”

“What? Oh yeah sure, they’re fine.” His hand made a sticking noise when he lifted it to turn the wheel, “You can even talk to them if you don’t get too close and are in a time machine; they just won’t remember what you said when the loop restarts.” The car was silent for a few minutes, save for the engine and the occasional blip from Skeets as he tried to hover in the back without being thrown into the seats.

“Why do all the aliens attack us?” pouted Milagro.

“It’s not really--” he stopped when Milagro scoffed in protest, “I mean it’s not attacking Earth, or El Paso. It likes time travelers, or people affected by time travelers, something about the energy of the time stream sticking to your personal history. Around here, that’s me, Jaime, and unfortunately because of that blast from Black Beetle a few months ago, you.” Another line of cars honked as he drifted too close to the other lane. “Luckily it’s hard for them to detect time stream energy, so as long as it never finds out who you, are you’ll be safe.”

Milagro rolled her eyes. She was beginning to see why Guy thought Booster was an idiot. “This is what I meant before. It’s not secrets you’re bad at, it’s secret identities. Keeping a… a,” she cast around for the phrase her dad had used, “a low profile. If I’m a boring, normal kid at school, no creepy alien wants to put me in a time box. Then you,” she uncrossed her arms to point an accusing finger at him, “show up in the flashiest car acting all important. Now everyone’s gonna think I know a celebrity.”

“Ah, but I had a plan.” He batted away her finger, so she stuck her tongue out at him, “See, everyone looks at me and just remembers the guy with the cheesy attitude; they don’t remember at all the kid I left with, or anything else about me. Besides, if you get a chance to drive a sweet car like this, you don’t turn it down.” With another cheeky grin, he turned to wink at her.

“Sir!” cried Skeets. With a shout, Michael slammed on the brakes. They screeched to a halt inches from an SUV that had stopped at a light.

“They might’ve figured out you’re the other time-traveler person.” Milagro pointed out once she’d caught her breath.

“Come on, who could figure that out?”

“Miss Patterson.”

“Who?” The light changed and he edged the car forward, passing the SUV while still in the intersection.

“Beverly,” she mimicked his flirty tone from earlier.

If he noticed her snark, he ignored it. “What on earth makes you think she knows anything?”

“Because she’s been following us for the past ten minutes.”

“WHAT?” In his surprise Michael hit the brake, this time the SUV almost hit them before he recovered and picked up speed. “Skeets, the black four-door two cars back--scan the occupant please.”

“On it, sir.” There was a soft whirring sound.

“Is it the Masque?” asked Milagro, twisting in her seat-belt to get up on her knees and watch behind them.

“Detecting anomalous temporal energies, sir, miss.”

“That’s it,” confirmed Michael, tugging on Milagro’s arm to make her sit down, “Let’s lose her.” With a squeal the car jumped forward. They wove their way through the city, turning unexpectedly and backtracking. Beverly the Masque seemed to realize they’d caught her trailing them and stopped being sneaky in favour of keeping as close as possible.

If Michael's driving had been erratic before, now it was downright terrifying. Turn signals were suggestions, yellow lights were challenges, and the speed limit was ignored entirely. After a couple of near collisions resulted in a scratch on the front driver-side panel and a dent on the rear bumper, Skeets started calling out suggestions in addition to regular updates on their pursuer. For her part, Milagro alternately shouted encouragement or covered her eyes. She had just uncovered her eyes when Michael slammed on the gas again

“Stop! Stop!!” she screamed. They were headed for a red light.

“No, I can do it.” He leaned forward, pressing on the gas.

“Sir, I would advise against this course of action.”

“Advice ignored.” The cross street light turned yellow. With a shout, Booster wrenched the wheel to the right and mounted the curb to pass the cars waiting at the light. Pedestrians screamed and dodged into doorways, horns blared, and the driver-side mirror was knocked off by a lightpost. At the last second, the cross street light turned red and they tore through the intersection before their light changed.

“YES!” cheered Michael.

“Sir, I am picking up several police broadcasts warning of our stunts. I believe law enforcement will be converging on us momentarily.”

“Not a problem. We’ll have to avoid them though.”

“Are you crazy?” shouted Milagro

“What, no big deal.” He waved a hand without quite removing it from the steering wheel, the car veered and shook.

“Never do that again! ANY of that.” She caught her breath. “Now the time-thing is going to eat the police too, and we still don’t know how to save Mom, Dad, and Jaime!”

He took a breath, “Right, yeah. We have to save them, we have to…” he drifted off as he made a sudden swerve onto a side street. “I have a plan.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow.

“No? Skeets!” He spun the wheel to turn them back onto a major road.

“The time loop is built based on the Masque’s genetic link with the time stream, th--“

“Wait no, I think I’ve got something if we just… um…”

“Sir, the Masque’s bio-chronal signature may b--”

“I’ve got it! We go back in time and… wait no, where are we going to get a Crasedinian temporal disruptor?”

“Sir if I may, the feedback fro--”

“Ah-HA!” He shouted, clapping his hands. The car shook slightly when he took his hands off the wheel; Milagro dove to grab it but he noticed and put his hands back before she could reach. “If we lure the Masque into the time loop itself, she’ll have to drop it to let herself out and we’ll have her.”

“We will, sir, not to mention--“

“It’s perfect! The rest doesn’t matter.”

“Indeed, sir, truly brilliant.”

Milagro gaped at the two of them, finally she turned back to look at Skeets. “Is it always like this?”

“Yes, Miss Reyes; Booster Gold is the most brilliant superhero you’ve never heard of.”

With all the twists and turns they ended up being only about ten minutes from the Reyes’ house. Within five minutes the Masque had caught back up and was once again visible in their rear-view mirrors. Within seven minutes the police had spotted them as well and at least one set of flashing lights blinked behind the Chronophage. The engine had started to sound overworked with all the pressure they’d put on it.

“That’s my street up there!” Milagro pointed.

“Okay, good. Skeets, what’s the timing on the loop?”

“There are 14 minutes and 23 seconds left in the current time loop.”

“Enough time for her to notice then. We’ll just have to hope she takes it down the right way. Milagro?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happens, we’re going to get your family out, okay? Just remember that.” He turned onto the street; the Masque followed.

“What? What are you going to do?”

They sped to the end of the street where Michael wrenched on the steering wheel, pulling them in a tight U-turn. Neighbours were already starting to watch through the windows as the Masque started down the street after them and the wail of several police cars drew closer. “This,” he replied, slamming on the gas.

They sped straight for the Masque’s car. Milagro screamed. Skeets flew forward and landed on her lap; she wrapped her arms around the small robot and held him close, for his safety or her comfort she wasn’t sure. A police car turned onto the street and parked, blocking the entrance. Chickening out first, the Masque veered to the side - a move Michael matched. With a scream of twisting metal they collided, the Masque’s car tumbled toward the Reyes’ house where it slipped into the time loop and vanished. Booster released the steering wheel and held his arms out, triggering the force shield generator on his wrist. The front of their car was crushed up to an inch before the front windshield where compacted metal pressed against a translucent wall.

“We did it,” Michael said shakily.

“Is it supposed to be doing that?” Milagro pointed at her house which had started to glow oddly. A shimmer hung around the building like hot air above a highway in mid-summer.

“Sir, I believe the the time loop is destabilizing.” Reported Skeets.

“Everybody get down!” Michael threw himself over Milagro.

There was a flash. 

* * *

 

Milagro was on the swing-set at her school, exactly where she’d been half an hour ago, just before Michael had picked her up. She jumped off the swing and looked around. Had it got her? Was she trapped in a time loop? No, none of the other kids were there. She’d been sent back half an hour, but the rest of the world hadn’t. The playground was empty, except… she turned; yup, Beverly Patterson stood by the playground gate looking as dazed as Milagro had felt a second ago. Milagro ran over.

“You’re a Masque,” she reported, accusingly.

“What?”

“An alien that eats lives or time or something.” Milagro put her hands on her hips and did her best to look threatening. The frown hadn’t really worked on Booster earlier, but she knew Guy had a threatening grin; she focused on that idea and grinned at the alien/teacher. “You’re not eating me, and you’re not eating my family.”

After a pause, Beverly Patterson threw back her head and laughed. “You honestly think you could stop me, small human?” The giggling persona had gone and she glared down at Milagro.

“Maybe not, but I know about time loops now, so if you ever try to catch me in one, I’ll know just to keep an eye out for when you come by and pull you in. Plus I’ll tell everyone who’ll believe me that you’re a creepy alien and everyone who won’t that you buy cigarettes for kids. No one’ll trust you, and you’ll get fired.”

A flicker of fear crossed the Masque’s face and was gone. She opened her mouth to speak, but before any words came out, she was surrounded by a shimmering blue glow.

“I’d listen to the lady,” came a voice behind them. Booster Gold floated there several feet in the air. A beam of blue light from his ring stretched to surround Beverly. “But for now we’re going to go find out what the Green Lanterns think of you being in a Chronophage restricted sector. I hear Guy Gardner’s back on-planet.” He winked at Milagro; the Masque paled and started thrashing against the force field. “Tell the Blue Beetle I said hi if you see him, young lady.” With that he took off, towing the Masque and with Skeets zipping alongside.

Milagro laughed. Booster was still really bad at secret identities. She could appreciate that he tried, and at least there was no one around to watch anyway. She was still laughing when Jaime ran up.

“What’s up? Am I late?” He looked around the empty playground. “Did something happen?”

She shrugged and patted his arm. “Booster and I just saved you all. Nothing to worry about.”


End file.
